France reels after girl’s body found, justice system under fire

Lyhanna’s disappearance ended in horror and then in scrutiny, after investigators found a child’s body in an abandoned silo in Puycasquier and DNA tests confirmed it was the 11-year-old girl who vanished after school near Fleurance on May 29.

The case has since become a national reckoning over how French authorities handled repeated complaints against the 41-year-old father of two now suspected in her death. Prosecutors said he had twice before been formally accused of raping a child, yet those cases were dropped or stalled, and police had still not questioned him before Lyhanna disappeared nine months after the most recent complaint.

The record stretches back years. In December 2017, a mother reported that her 17-year-old daughter was in a relationship with the man; that case was dropped in 2018 after the girl said she had consented. In January 2022, another complaint accused him of raping a child younger than 15 in 2020 at his home in southwestern France. That case was dismissed in 2024 for lack of evidence. Prosecutor Clémence Meyer said a third complaint was filed on August 22, 2025, accusing him of raping a girl born in 2014 between September 2024 and May 2025. A new complaint for the alleged rape of a minor was filed on Wednesday.

President Emmanuel Macron, speaking while attending a European summit in Montenegro, called the situation a judicial "dysfunction" and said it was "unacceptable." The French government said it would investigate the failures, while Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin apologized publicly and said the justice system had failed to protect the child. Darmanin said he would summon all public prosecutors in Paris on Monday morning and review why the case moved between jurisdictions, why information was still being transmitted on paper instead of electronically, and why police apparently did not follow orders that might have changed the outcome.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu called the case "particularly shocking" and asked for initial findings from an administrative probe within two weeks. In Fleurance, residents were planning a silent march in Lyhanna’s memory.

The pressure now reaches beyond one suspect and one town. France was already facing criticism over child-protection failures, including a late-May investigation by Paris prosecutors into abuse allegations in the capital’s after-school care system. The case also landed in a country already condemned by the European Court of Human Rights on April 24, 2025, for failings in the protection of minors who filed rape complaints with French authorities.